Two witnesses, one of them a security guard, told Watertown, N.Y. police that Danbury Whalers hockey coach Phil Esposito cursed and shoved a woman and her 7-year-old daughter out of the way as he walked toward the locker room after his team lost a game on New Year's Day.

The woman, 35-year-old Jennifer Bellis, also claimed that Esposito cursed and pushed her a second time after she went to the Whalers' locker room to complain to the team's owner about his conduct. The shove caused Bellis to stumble into her daughter, knocking the child to the ground, according to a statement she gave to police after the incident.

"I walked to the locker room to ask for the team owner," Bellis wrote in the statement. "I was standing at the door when a male came out yelling `Get the f-- out of here.' I tried to ask for the owner again and he then with both arms pushed me and my 7 yr old daughter causing her to fall backwards."

Abusive coaches are nothing new -- from Mike Rice, the Rutgers basketball coach who was fired in April for throwing basketballs at players to Bobby Knight, who was fired from Indiana University in 2000 after grabbing a student -- but with a national spotlight on all sorts of bullying, sports leagues are less tolerant of bad behavior among coaches.

Esposito, 43, and in his third year as head coach of Danbury's Federal Hockey League franchise, was charged after the game with two counts of second-degree harassment and a single count of endangering the welfare of a child. All the charges are misdemeanors, according to Detective Sgt. Joseph Donoghue.

He was released on $100 bond and is scheduled to appear in Watertown City Court on Jan 13.

Esposito previously declined to comment on his arrest, and attempts to contact him on Wednesday, after Hearst Connecticut Newspapers obtained a police report and the witnesses' statements, were unsuccessful.

The Whalers' coach is not related to Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito, who played for the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers in the 1970s and 1980s, and later served as coach and general manager of the Rangers.

According to New York state law, a person is charged with second-degree harassment when he or she intentionally shoves, kicks or otherwise subjects another person to unwanted physical contact.

Bellis told police that she and her daughter were walking on a ramp on their way out of the arena when a man, who she subsequently realized was the Whalers' coach, suddenly pushed her from behind, causing her to stumble.

Two other witnesses, a 42-year-old woman who also attended the game and a security guard, 20, provided similar accounts of the incident on the ramp. But neither was present for the subsequent confrontation outside the locker room.

The security guard, Anthony Christian, told police that Bellis and her daughter were standing in the walkway when the Whalers' coach pushed them out of the way, "using a one-handed swinging motion."

"As he did this, I heard him say, 'Get the f-- out of my way,' " Christian said in his statement.

Team owners Herm Sorcher and Alan Friedman, said they were awaiting the outcome of the case before deciding if any disciplinary action was warranted.

"He's a coach in good standing and has never had any incidents off the ice that we are aware of," Friedman said. "This is a good guy. He volunteers his time in the schools and does a lot in the community. That's why we're surprised."

Neither owner was at the game at the Watertown Fairgrounds Arena, where the Whalers, last year's league champion, lost their second consecutive game in four days to the Watertown Privateers.

But they noted that security personnel should have been at the locker room door to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering.

"There were men changing," Sorcher said. "We would hope that someone was standing there so a woman wouldn't walk in with her daughter."